Ever Changing weather ....and schedule.

July 22, 2013

 

It is early and cool in our room this morning.  I'm trying to get a jump on the internet service so perhaps we can get it all posted and downloaded before our busy day begins.

 

Once again our schedules have been changed,  It seems that even though the park visitors are up by 5% this year the business throughout the park is down.  People are staying more outside the park in hotels and motels OR they are camping.  Money seems to be a factor - understandably, reflecting the economy of the country.  We have many visitors to our store from neighboring states and a lot of foreigners as well.  So all but two of the Yellowstone General Stores (YGS) are cutting EVERYONE'S hours back to 24.  This has been especially hard on the international students who put forth a lot of funds to come here.  They were guaranteed 30 hours a week - about half of them were planning to leave on August 9th anyway, but still it had hurt their plans for an extended visit to the US.  They had plans to go to San Francisco for a week.  We sort of like the 6 1/2 hour day and three days off in a row, although we had plans for the $$$, too.  After Labor day, Roosevelt closes and our hours are abbreviated. so hopefully we will pick up a few more hours each day.  A lot of the Tower employees are leaving September 8, so with less employees that equals to more opportunity to work.

 



 One of the perks of being held up in the road construction traffic at the store is the opportunity to see the beautiful mule deer bucks.  They seem to be real buddies right now, but so far we have only seen one female mule deer and with the Rut right around the corner...well, friendships have been severed for less.  We'll see who the dominate one is come August!!

There are three mule deer in this picture.  It took us a few minutes to see the one right underneath the standing tree (far left upper corner).  There is one centered right under him and of course the one in the forefront camo-ed in the midst of the fallen tree branches.

On our days off last week we traveled to West Yellowstone.  We had our picnic lunch ready to go and the drive over was beautiful.  When we got to the Blue Ribbon Fly shop we were told that the streams in the park that we were planning to fish were too warm and it was suggested we drive north out of West Yellowstone on Highway 191 to mile marker 28-29.  It was a beautiful place to fish, but the horse flies were terrible and again we couldn't fish for the swatting at the flies.  We drove on to Big Sky and found a place to pull off and have a picnic.  We thought about coming back to Tower by way of Bozeman in that the distance was about the same continuing north to I-90 and then going east to Livingston and back down to the Park.  But decided the scenery back through to West Yellowstone was not as familiar as the other route.  Boy were we glad we took that route.  A storm came up and there was a mudslide north of Gardiner that shut the road down all night.  Several of our friends got caught in that traffic jam.  One couple stayed put and got back here around 12:30AM the next morning.  One car decided to turn around and come back down Hwy 191 (the route we took) but the storm had knocked down an electrical wire and it was across the highway.  They were delayed there until after midnight as well.  Whew!! we dodged the bullet on that one!!  That storm also produced a lightening strike on Electric Mountain outside of Gardiner that caused a pretty significant  fire on the mountain.

On Friday we had an unexpected day off and decided we would go to Cody, WY.  We asked Jean, one of the girls from Taiwan to go with us.  The Taiwanese are very interested in the history of the Western US and Jean especially likes museums.  We only had about 3-4 hours there because our dorm was having a bonfire at 8PM (with S'mores) so our day was a little rushed even though we started the trip at 7:30 AM.  We had a really good time.  As we were leaving I told Jean I had a sculpture to show her and asked if she knew of Sacagawea.  She told me yes that she had seen her in a movie.  I thought for a moment and then asked "Did that movie happen to be "Night at the Museum"? she sheepishly looked at me and said,  "Yes". I laughed and said "I love that Movie, too."  We both had a big laugh.

 Sweet Jean from Taiwan - she is very smart and a good worker.  She and all the girls from Taiwan will be with us until September 18.

She is a a quiet girl, but loves to have a good time.  None of these girls are big as a minute and they eat like lumberjacks!!

Some kind person offered to take this picture of us.  It is a treasure. 

Saw "the Griz" on the way back from Cody.  He was very near the road in Hayden Valley.

 

Again, we have been blessed beyond measure to be here, in good health and to see so many sights.